KARACHI: The emergency operations centre (EOC) for polio in Sindh informed a senior official of the Technical Advisory Group (TAG), a global initiative for countries still fighting against polio, on Tuesday that it was vaccinating half a million children every month who either enter or depart from Karachi.

Chairman of TAG Dr Jean Marc Olive visited the EOC in Sindh to review the progress on implementation of polio eradication activities in accordance with the National Emergency Action Plan.

Dr Usman Chachar, coordinator of the EOC in Sindh, informed the TAG head in a meeting that some 96 transit points had been set up in Karachi that vaccinated around half a million children who were on the move each month.

Such entry and exit points had been established at railway stations, toll plazas, bus routes, etc. Dr Olive and his colleagues were also briefed about the strategy being implemented for missed children.

The EOC official said 775 health camps held between April and September in parts of Karachi which offered oral polio vaccine and inactivated polio vaccine along with other medical services for which there were 200,000 beneficiaries.

Dr Chachar spoke on current polio situation and the headway being made. He said Sindh recorded four cases as opposed to 15 in the same period last year and 30 in the province in the whole of 2014. The last case in Sindh was in February, 2015 while the last reported case in Karachi was in October, 2014.

Dr Olive was also briefed about the environmental sampling in Karachi and the rest of Sindh as well as strategies being implemented in high-risk areas.

Azra Fazal Pechuho, EOC chairperson, informed the TAG delegation that there was a large high-risk mobile population in Gadap and Gulshan towns and surrounding areas which posed a challenge to polio eradication. Besides, how community-based initiatives were being used to address this challenge.

She spoke about the strategy to tackle seasonal migration trends in northern Sindh as well as the issues faced in riverine areas.

She said a robust accountability mechanism was being evolved and action would be taken against poor performers.

Technical consultant Dr Ahmad Ali Shaikh said there were a number of areas that were previously inaccessible, but because of innovative communication strategies by involving communities the situation had improved.

World Health Organisation’s Chris Maher said the EOC must find missing children and there should be an investigative analysis through which details of every positive environmental sample were documented and its route be identified. He said people bringing the virus in must be found out.

An EOC official claimed that Dr Olive was satisfied with the centre’s performance, however, he said documentation of accountability framework be implemented. He said the identified challenges needed to be overcome through better coordination to improve future polio campaigns.

Published in Dawn September 30th, 2015

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